LUNENBURG — The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is gearing up to hear a court case that could permanently strike the phrase “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance recited by schoolchildren.

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[An] unidentified [Atheist] family is joined in the case by the American Humanist Association, a secular rights group. They say this violates the equal rights amendment in the Massachusetts Constitution. In addition, they also say the daily recital of the pledge counts as unlawful discrimination.

Anyone else find it hypocritical that the AHA uses God’s name all the time (as seen in the above picture proudly displayed on their main page ), yet refuse that basic right to our children?

On June 8, the lawsuit was rejected by the Middlesex Superior Court, and the Supreme Judicial Court decided last month to hear the case. Oral arguments will start in early 2013, and the judgment should be revealed by early summer.

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The case has two separate groups of defendants. One is the school district and Acton-Boxboro Superintendent Stephen E. Mills. The other is a Catholic family headed by Daniel and Ingrid Joyce who have two children in the district, the Knights of Columbus and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty activist law firm.

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Eric Rassbach of the deputy general counsel for the Becket Fund, said the God referred to in the Pledge of Allegiance is the origin of the rights of Americans, not a religious deity.

“They wanted to draw a distinction between countries like the Soviet Union, where rights proceed from the state. He said the Declaration of Independence shows the founding fathers believed rights come from the creator, and that the government can’t take them away.

He said rights that come from the state are fake.

“The state could just declare you don’t have those rights anymore,” said Rassbach. He said that same meaning for God is used in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and the Massachusetts Constitution.

The interpretation of “God” having a non-religious meaning was supported by Middlesex Superior Court Judge S. Jane Haggerty when she rejected the suit. She wrote that the pledge is a patriotic exercise, not a prayer.

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QUOTE:

"We don't intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended. We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals of our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the party over to the so-called moderates wouldn't make any sense at all." - Ronald Reagan

( via "The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964-1980" by Steven F. Hayward, page 96)